Keep it Together

This has been a flat-out lousy two weeks. And you wouldn't imagine that it would have been so. We've had family triumphs, I've done some writing that pleases me, I've kept away from the beer and hero sandwiches, haven't given in to the tobacco demons (I don't count the two cigars). Forced myself to walk to and from my office. Made some reasonable plans for the short and the long term. Haven't kicked any little dogs or old ladies.

Why do I feel so desolate, so lost? [Note to self: start charting these depressive moods against the local tide tables. You never know.] Sometimes, when things seem to be going well, my brain rebels. My guardian angel, the woman who's been my therapist for a decade, used to tell me, back when the "real world" had overwhelmed me and I really had something to be depressed about, that she wondered whether, when I gained some control over my life, I'd find that success was almost equally difficult to deal with. I'd spent so many years slugging it out, trying to keep it together when it would have been so much easier to pull the ripcord. She wondered whether I'd be able to adjust to not having to face each day with a knife in one hand and a Glock in the other, figuratively.